Last year, I purchased 40 gigabytes of Google storage and didn't use it, which was therefore a waste of my £40.

This year, Google sent me a renewal email and I foolishly assumed that if I took no action, the contract would be cancelled. Sadly, the opposite is true and I have just received an email saying £40 will be charged to my credit card for the next year. I know it is my fault for not reading the email properly but I have some financial difficulties and can't really afford to pay £40 for something I am not going to use. I have tried contacting Google but it is impossible and I think they are a bit faceless. MD, Bradford

One might think this would be a straightforward inquiry with a massive company such as Google that has a mission statement "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". But it is not the easiest company to contact, and you had trouble getting though, a problem faced by too many customers of web-based operations.

Capital Letters pleaded your case but it would not relent, saying storage purchases are non-refundable. The online purchase system is set up with a default to auto-renew at the end of each year and it is up to the customer to change this setting, it says. It's true that you should have read the renewal email, and other readers need to take note of this type of selling practice.